Yes. Can you recall if it made a big impression on Hooper? If it did, would he be repeating the exact same 'conundrum' today, 2 years later?
You’ve been missing the point.
The problem isn’t with Floyd Toole, the problem is with folks like yourself and sometimes others who push the scepticism about sighted listening too far, and use it as a blunt cudgel to dismiss any appeal to sighted listening. So the problem isn’t with Floyd Toole, it’s more about the type of attitude that often flares up in this forum about sighted listening.
Toole said that sighted listening isn’t useless; but listening with scientific controls yields substantially more reliable information.
That of course, has been my position all along. And it avoids the conundrum. The greater reliability using the scientific controls is a GIVEN. But it’s also reasonable to explore why “ sighted listening isn’t useless.” Which brings the question “ OK when is it reasonable to allow for conclusions based on sighted listening?
This is an incredibly pertinent question because most of us aren’t able to do science on our perception all day long, and in the end, we are using sighted listening in our homes.
This is the area where dogmatism against sighted listening, of the type you often produce, leads to problems of the sort I keep pointing out.
Dr Toole's conclusion, after much generous latitude, was to use the Spinorama, and to EQ your bass in-room to get it right.
Completely consistent with my position.
Why? Because sighted listening cannot be trusted.
Well, there you go again. It all depends exactly what you mean when you say sighted listening “ cannot be trusted.”
If you mean “ cannot be trusted to give scientific levels of confidence.”
Then, of course, it would be no disagreement between us whatsoever. We know sighted listening has liabilities. But if you want to suggest as you typically do that sighted listening is essentially useless for vetting audio gear, then you bring in the problems I keep raising.
Again:
1. We all normally recognize that we can’t have scientific levels of confidence for every decision or conclusion we make: normal life would be rendered impossible on such demands. Therefore, we have to recognize we are justified in coming to conclusions which admit of uncertainty, but which are nonetheless reasonable.
2. Once you’ve acknowledged that obvious fact, it is reasonable to explore the type of conclusions we can draw anywhere, including choices of audio gear, that may admit of uncertainty because we aren’t using scientific controls, but which nonetheless are REASONABLE.
That doesn’t mean “ I’ll just assume it’s a bias effect and not reality.” It’s about being justified in provisionally concluding, without scientific certainty, that you are perceiving the real Sonic characteristics of a piece of gear.
And that is the space I have been talking about.
I keep giving all sorts of examples, once again, a whole bunch in this very thread, where it seems reasonable (in the sense outlined above ) to conclude people, including myself, our hearing real Sonic characteristics and not just imagining it
It is notable that you have not shown any of the examples to have been unreasonable.
Instead, you tend to stick to blanket protestations like “ sighted listening can not be trusted.”
So you are never really addressing the issue.
The reason is pretty obvious: you are worried that giving any credence whatsoever to sighted listening opens the gates to the Subjectivist Barbarians, and possibly even more horrific, the fear of giving any legitimacy to any subjective reviews.
This keeps you on your dogmatic tracks, which leads to the conundrums I raise.
Speaking of which:
I have several times spoken on ASR of the opportunity to use the data to make a shortlist of speakers that all meet whatever high standards of reproduction that one demands, then use sighted listening to choose between them with one's cognitive biases in full swing. Sighted Listening With Insurance.
This clearly does not resolve the conundrum.
What point is there to trying to “ meet high standards of reproduction” if you are not, in sighted conditions, going to benefit from it by perceiving it?
In other words, what use is accurate equipment if sighted listening, how you will perceive the results, is inaccurate?
There is no “ insurance” in any such view.
When you’ve been asked to further justify this “ solution” it’s clear
You don’t seem to have
Understood the problem
The more you crank up the skepticism over sighted listening, the less relevant you make “good speaker measurements” to choosing speakers for the sighted conditions in which we actually listen to our loudspeakers.
The only solution is to be reasonable, and dial back your level of scepticism about sighted listening: when you get your great measuring loudspeakers, you will not be left in a helpless morass of sighted delusion: you’ll be able to perceive “ the sound waves” accurately
enough to enjoy the real Sonic characteristics you paid for.
And you know very well that, whatever lip service you and others pay here to the untrustworthiness of sighted listening, nobody here is actually assuming they are sighted listening is THAT untrustworthy.
Is quite obvious that the reason people are looking to measure rents and recommending certain speakers is that the listener is expected to be able to actually perceive and appreciate the ACTUAL Sonic qualities of those loudspeakers under sighted conditions
in their home. That goes for you too.
So it is quite inconsistent for you to turn around and wave off the reasonableness of any of the sighted listening conclusions I’ve pointed to as totally untrustworthy and useless, and not noticing how this undermines your ability to be rational about your own decisions.
The elephant in the room.
…. is currently stepping on your toes. ;-)
As I pointed out before, the irony here is that my position actually justifies the relevance of the scientific data from blind testing to choosing loudspeakers. The ASR approach is completely coherent on my reasoning.
Your inability to allow any legitimacy to sighted listening leaves you unable to produce a coherent justification.